


Ready

by Theoroark



Series: Reunion [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, Friendship, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 12:42:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14811578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theoroark/pseuds/Theoroark
Summary: “Track down Gabriel and find out what’s going on” had seemed like a fine and noble mission at the time. What Fareeha had not realized was that it translated to her mother and Commander Morrison crashing at her apartment, which now housed four people and two rambunctious dogs.





	Ready

“Track down Gabriel and find out what’s going on” had seemed like a fine and noble mission at the time. What Fareeha had not realized was that it translated to her mother and Commander Morrison crashing at her apartment, which now housed four people and two rambunctious dogs.

 

It had never been officially discussed. The night she had come home from the temple facility, the four of them had sat around the kitchen table and shared what they knew. Eventually, as the sun started to rise, thoughts became less coherent and yawns grew more frequent, and so Fareeha suggested they all retire. Her mother had gone to the guest room and Commander Morrison had slept on the couch. (“God, I wish I could send a picture of this to Jesse,” Angela had whispered, staring at his feet dangling off the end. “He’d laugh his ass off.”) It had all made sense at the time.

 

But over a week had passed now and they were still here and all they had done was talk. They kept the blinds drawn to hide from prying eyes the large map of Reaper sightings her mother and Morrison had set up. They slipped in and out of the apartment as swiftly as possible– no mean feat with the dogs– to keep their neighbors from catching a glimpse of two of the world’s best known, and supposedly dead, war heroes eating oatmeal in the breakfast nook.

 

“I can’t keep doing this,” Fareeha had said to Angela when they were finally, finally, alone in bed one night. Angela sighed. 

 

“Do you think it’s not worth it?”

 

“It would be worth it if we were doing anything!” Fareeha said. Angela moved slightly to avoid her gesticulation. “Instead, I’ve just moved back in with my mother! And my boring divorced uncle!” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “The more time we take, the longer Gabriel has to find out what we’re doing. He has ties to the Sombra collective. He could find us. He may already have found you. We need to move.”

 

Angela took her hand in her lap. “You know I’m not the one you need to be talking to, Fareeha.”

 

“I know.” The two of them stared at their clasped hands for a moment. “But I don’t wanna.”

 

Angela laughed. “I think you gotta.”

 

“Well, speaking of not doing anything, have you ever seen my mom change her mind? Admit she was wrong?”

 

“I’m sure it’s happened,” Angela muttered. “She’s a very capable leader.”

 

“Yeah, but she’s also my mother. And I don’t think that skillset translates.”

 

“Well, I don’t know Fareeha.” Angela suddenly looked despondent, and Fareeha felt guilt at her negativity. “You’re right, we can’t keep doing this. We’re going to reach a breaking point sooner or later. And then you’ll have to talk to her.”

 

She was right, Fareeha thought, after she had turned off the lights and lay down to grasp at sleep. But she insisted on inaction, insisted on leaving pot unattended until it boiled over. She would wait until the breaking point, even though that would be a disaster. 

 

That disaster came when Commander Morrison handed Fareeha a bag of his dirty laundry. 

 

“You know, since I ah, can’t go out,” he had said, when Fareeha had just stared at him, flabbergasted. “I don’t know if you have machines in the building, or…”

 

Fareeha looked at her mother other his shoulder. Ana kept her eye solidly fixed on her laptop. 

 

“You have machines in the building, don’t you, habtiti?” she said. 

 

Fareeha took the bag from Morrison, dropped it on the floor, and sat down on the couch next to her mother. She buried her head in her hands. “We need to talk,” she said. 

 

There was a moment of silence, then she heard Ana closing the laptop. “Okay,” Ana said. “What’s going on?”

 

“We can’t keep this up,” Fareeha said. She drew her hands down her face in time to see Ana and Morrison exchanging a look. “If we’re going to go after Gabe, we need to make a plan and act on it. Otherwise, you two need to leave. Angela and I can’t live like this.”

 

Commander Morrison cleared his throat. “Fareeha, I know this isn’t easy,” he said. “But we can’t just run in without a plan. Gabe has the full backing of Talon now, and your mother and I still have bounties. We need to be thoughtful.”

 

“Okay,” Fareeha said. “You’ve had a lot of time here, and God knows how long you were holed up in that World Heritage Site. What’s the plan?”

 

“Fareeha it’s– not that simple–”

 

“Mom,” Fareeha said, leaning past Morrison. “What’s the plan?”

 

Her mother was silent, and Fareeha somehow felt relieved when her suspicions were confirmed. Ana had been careful not to show the same anxiety she had on that first night, but the illusion was broken. Had been ever since she had gotten her letter, if Fareeha was being honest. Her mother’s call sign had been “Horus.” She had always been spoken of reverentially as some bird of prey and now that Fareeha had seen combat, she could see how that was true, how her mother’s piercing stare and sharp presence hid hollow bones. Her flight made more sense when Fareeha realized how brittle she was. 

 

Commander Morrison was afraid to face Gabriel and that was no surprise, but now her mother was too. That may not have been a surprise, necessarily, but it was a disappointment. 

 

“Right,” Fareeha said. She stood and the two of them looked up at her. “We can’t keep doing this. We leave to find Gabe within the week, or you two leave on your own.”

 

Before, when she had made such a grand pronouncement at the Necropolis, she had been able to stomp out into the desert. Now she was stuck in her cramped apartment. She could head out, she supposed, but then the dogs would start barking and she wanted to talked to Angela anyway. So despite her being the one to tell off her mother, Fareeha turned and marched herself to her room. 

 

-

 

Angela, bless her heart, did not say “I told you so” when Fareeha called her, huddled at the edge of her bed and whispering so her mother wouldn’t overhear. Angela just sighed. 

 

“Well, you gave them a deadline,” she said. “That’s good.”

 

“I just can’t believe them,” Fareeha said. Moony– splayed out on her back, paws in the air, nosed at Fareeha’s thigh, and Fareeha rolled her eyes and resumed rubbing the dog’s belly. “After everything they did, after running away from everything and everyone they’re responsible, they’re still too damn chickenshit to face him–”

 

“Fareeha,” Angela cut in. “I’m afraid to see Gabriel too.”

 

Fareeha sat up straight. Moony cocked her head in concern. “What? Why?”

 

“Because…” Angela sighed. “Do you know how I met Gabriel?” Fareeha shook her head, forgetting she was on the phone, but Angela continued anyway. “I was fourteen, and I went to visit Torbjörn in the hospital after he had his arm amputated. He tried so hard to put on a brave face– acting all gruff as normal– but I was still so scared for him. When I left his room my foster parents weren’t there yet and I just sat in the waiting room and cried.” Angela sounded steady now, but Fareeha still felt a pang of sadness for the lonely little girl, and wished more than anything she could take Angela’s hand. 

 

“And then Gabriel showed up,” Angela continued. “And he must have recognized me from Torbjörn’s pictures, because he sat down next to me asked me what was wrong with him. I was confused and said, ‘the arm,’ and he waved his hand and said, ‘no, I know that, but is there infection? Is he in shock? Were there complications in the surgery?’ And when I said no, just the arm, he let out this big sigh of relief, and went, ‘phew, you had me worried there.’” Angela laughed a little. “And at the time, I was like, is this guy dumb, but looking back on it it made me feel so much better. It grounded me and it made me feel like I was helping.” Fareeha smiled, despite the prickling in her eyes. “Then he bought me some cookies at the hospital gift shop and told me that Torbjörn never shut up about how smart I was and left. And when my foster parents came to pick me up, I wasn’t crying anymore.”

 

“I didn’t know that, Angie,” Fareeha said. “I’m…” She trailed off. This wasn’t exactly something one was sorry for, really. 

 

Angela did not seem to notice her hesitation. “He was a good man,” she said in a small voice. “Even if I didn’t agree with all his decisions, I trusted that he was coming from the right place. Even when he hired O’Deorain– that was the angriest I had ever been at him– he told me that he knew, that he agreed with me, that I just needed to trust him, and I did. He was a good man and I did this to him. Because I was so scared of what I had done I never wanted to see it again, and so I ran away instead of making sure no one else was doing it. I’m terrified of what he’s going to say when I see him again, Fareeha. Because I still trust him and I have no doubt he’ll be furious and whatever he says, he’ll be right.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Fareeha said, meaning it well and truly this time. “I’ve been so– I should have thought more about you, Angie, I should have asked. I need you to know that there’s nothing I want from Gabe enough to put you in this position.”

 

“‘Put me in this position?’” Fareeha frowned at Angela’s startled tone. “Fareeha, I want to find Gabe because of all that. If I ran from him because I was afraid of the truth he could tell– Fareeha, I’d be the worst kind of coward.”

 

Fareeha nodded. “Okay,” she said, distantly. 

 

“I mean, I am grateful, love. I’m not– upset you would offer, it means the world to me, I just wanted to be clear–”

 

“No, no, I know.” Moony nosed at her again and Fareeha patted the dog absently. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking.”

 

“Okay,” Angela said. 

 

“You made me realize something.”

 

“Something good?”

 

“Something,” Fareeha supplied, “and I’m grateful for that. Thank you.”

 

“Of course,” Angela still sounded worried, and Fareeha could just picture her, brow furrowed, tapping her pen feverishly against her desk. “Can we talk when I get home?”

 

“Of course. I love you.”

 

“Love you too.” Fareeha ended the call, and left her room. 

 

-

 

Jack and Ana watched Fareeha close her bedroom door behind her– just shy of a slam– and turned to look at each other. Jack sighed. 

 

“I still need to do my laundry,” he said, and he smiled a little when Ana cuffed him upside the head. “I deserved that.”

 

“You did.” She leaned forward and stared at her closed laptop, resting on the coffee table in front of them. “So. What do we do?”

 

“Well, wait. Are you okay?”

 

Ana resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She was a sixty year old fugitive crashing at her daughter’s place, imposing and putting her in legal jeopardy, and she had gotten so complacent Fareeha had had to be the one to put a stop to things. She was the burden she had sworn she would never be again, every other one of her loved ones thought she was dead, and she hadn’t been able to sleep through the night in going on fifteen years. But she wasn’t sure what Jack was going to do about any of that. 

 

“I’m fine,” she said. Jack didn’t look particularly convinced, so she pressed forward before he could say anything. “What are we going to do?”

 

Jack leaned back on the sofa and sighed. “I get what Fareeha’s saying. I do. But I don’t want to risk her and Angela on some half-baked plan. And now that we know where they live, we can reach out to then when we have something.”

 

“Right.”

 

“I mean–” Jack turned and looked at her with wide blue eyes, “–do you feel ready to go after him?”

 

Ana felt a wave of utterly unfair annoyance at him. She had been quite prepared to leave on account of Jack’s unwillingness to proceed, Jack’s unwillingness to face Gabriel. She had been prepared to set herself up as Jack’s long-suffering protector. But now that he had asked her that imminently reasonable question, she had to acknowledge the truth, and that was irritating. 

 

“You’re right,” she said. “We should go.” Jack stared at her for a moment longer, then nodded. 

 

“Right,” he said. They sat in silence for a few minutes before he stood and took a step towards Fareeha’s door. “So should I–”

 

Fareeha walked out and he jumped in place, and then hurriedly pivoted and sat back down in a defensive slouch, as Fareeha looked at him strangely. 

 

“Is everything okay?” she asked after a moment. 

 

“I– yes– it–,” Jack took a breath to collect himself. “What did you want?”

 

“To talk with my mom, actually,” Fareeha said. “In private. Can you go wait in the bathroom?”

 

“In the bathroom,” Jack repeated. 

 

“Yeah, well, my mom’s in the guest bedroom, so…”

 

“Not right now she isn’t!” Jack looked a little desperately between mother and daughter, and when neither of them gave him anything, he pushed off the couch with a huff and stomped to the bathroom. 

 

“Well, you got your payback,” Ana said as her daughter sat down next to her. “Did you actually want to talk?”

 

“I did.” Fareeha picked up Jack’s full, abandoned tea cup and took a sip. “I think I understand why you two don’t want to go after Gabe now.”

 

“Fareeha, I understand this isn’t a great situation for any of us, but rushing into things isn’t going to help anyone.”

 

“You don’t not want to see Gabe because you’re afraid,” Fareeha said, as though Ana had never spoken. “You don’t want to see him because you’re angry at him.”

 

“Fareeha, that’s–” Ana rubbed at her temple. “Gabriel was my best friend, for years, and he’s clearly– not himself. Angela told you, she said she wants to help him, and that’s what I’m trying to do too.”

 

“When I met Gabriel at Anubis, I tried to kill him,” Fareeha said. She was still speaking as though reading from a script, one that Ana had not received. Ana blinked and turned to her. 

 

“What–”

 

“I was so angry at him,” she said. Fareeha set her tea down and looked Ana in the eye. “He was with Talon, these people who took you from me, who killed so many, who were trying to kill my team. I was angry at him and I wanted so badly for him to give me a good reason why he was there. And he didn’t. He just gave me excuses.” She tucked her knees up to her chest. “I was so furious with him. And I was scared. If his friend hadn’t intervened, I would have killed him. And I could have come up with a very compelling argument as to why that was the right thing to do.”

 

“But you still feel bad,” Ana said quietly. 

 

“I still feel bad,” she agreed. “I still want him to turn around. I keep hoping he’ll come back, really come back. And I hate that he keeps not giving me that.”

 

“Fareeha.”

 

“I hated you,” she said, ignoring her. “When you wouldn’t give me that, either. When I got your letter, I knew I should just be happy you were alive, and I was, but I was also so, so angry. I felt guilty and confused and so I didn’t want to see you, because I didn’t know how to deal with it.” Ana looked down at her cup. “And so I get it. I do.”

 

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Ana said quietly. “I already apologized.”

 

“Not really, you didn’t,” Fareeha said. She sighed. “But you’re right. I know you’re sorry. But I’m still angry. So I don’t know, mom. I just wanted to let you know I understand.”

 

Ana tries to imagine if Fareeha had killed Gabriel in the Temple, just barely an act of self defense. She imagined and found that she wouldn’t have been angry with Fareeha about that. She was angry Fareeha was in combat, angry Fareeha had never responded to her letter, angry that Fareeha was angry at her. But she would not have been angry if she had killed Gabriel. 

 

“I do too, now,” Ana said. “Thank you, habtiti.” For almost the first time since she and Jack had arrived here, Ana saw her daughter smile. 

 

“We’ve got to go, though,” Fareeha said. “Angela will go without us if we don’t start moving soon.” Fareeha’s tone was serious, but Ana laughed, and when she did, Fareeha laughed a little as well. 

 

“I’m sure she will,” Ana said. She opened her laptop, and Fareeha leaned closer to her. “Why don’t you take a look at what we have. You might be able to piece something together.”

 

“I’ll try,” Fareeha murmured, scrolling through her files. “But if you and Commander Morrison couldn’t…”

 

Ana cleared her throat. “Well. You were right. We weren’t exactly giving it our all.”

 

Fareeha’s smile turned sly. “I was right? Really?”

 

“Don’t you start.”

 

“Does this thing have a microphone? Or should I get this in writing?” Ana jostled Fareeha and she laughed. The bathroom door opened. 

 

“Can I come out now?” Jack called. 

 

“No,” Ana said. Fareeha snorted. Jack came out anyway, and sat back down next to Ana, glancing forlornly at his stolen teacup. 

 

“So?” he said. 

 

“So we’re going after Gabe,” Fareeha said, her eyes fixed on the laptop. “You can come or not. But we’re going.”

 

Jack turned to Ana with wide eyes again, and she took his hand. “You should come,” she said quietly, and he nodded. For all Jack’s faults, for all the times he had been oblivious to how he hurt her, he knew how hard it was for her to ask for help, and so he did not dwell on that. He craned his neck to look at the laptop screen. 

 

“Still gonna take a lot of work,” he said. “Gabe’s still got a massive advantage, and we don’t know exactly where he is. And even if we find him, we don’t know if he’ll listen. He’s a stubborn bastard.”

 

“I’ve had practice with those,” Fareeha muttered. 

**Author's Note:**

> Fareeha Amari judging her mom's taste in bffs since 2044.
> 
> I'm @tacticalgrandma on tumblr if you want to talk to me there!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and any comments/kudos would mean the world to me <3


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